Finally the president knew there was only one way to end the hoboes' march across the blighted land: polio. Alone in his secret White House lab, Roosevelt created a concentrated serum of the dreaded disease that would be placed in the nation's water supply by the Tennessee Valley Authority. According to his contemporaries, Roosevelt was tortured by this decision. He knew that a certain number of non-hobo citizens would spend the rest of their lives in iron lungs as a result of his actions, but it would finally put a stop to the wandering people--starting at their feet and ending at their waists.

But then came Pearl Harbor. Some say Roosevelt knew the Japanese would attack that infamous December 7th. The truth is, he didn't. But the hoboes did. And as the tragic war that followed put a final end to the Great Depression, so too did it put an end to the hobo war. As quickly as they had come, the hoboes mysteriously disappeared. No one knows where they went, or why. Some say they found patriotism in their hearts, joining the war against a common enemy. Others say they went to the stars or to another dimension. And still others say they live on today, moving quietly from town to town, preparing for the time when their great chicken-bone and moonshine empire will rise again. Is it possible? No, because historians agree that they almost certainly went to the stars.

--It has the highest number, per capita, of Benjamin Franklin impersonators in the country.

--Someday all of the Benjamin Franklin impersonators will fight all of the Mark Twain impersonators, flooding valleys and destroying whole towns in their wake, until nothing is left.

--Harrison Ford lives here and protects Amish children.

--Bryn Mawr College, a small but esteemed school of witchcraft and wizardry in the city's western suburbs, is sometimes visible by day.

--Philadelphia is at the cutting edge of some of today's most exciting new developments in sandwich technology. The sandwiches here are so large and complex and sublime that they contain whole philosophies. Some have the complete oral traditions of several ancient cultures hidden within the roll alone.

--Philadelphia was one of the thirteen East Coast cities called "home" by Edgar Allen Poe, and it was here that he hosted the first of his many Christmas Literary Extravaganzas. Held in 1839, it was, by contemporary accounts, a grand affair, involving feats of literary memorization and drunken sword canery, and a chorus line of murderous orangutans. Poe was dressed as Santa Claus, but at this point in his career this was hardly unusual. After reciting "Tamerlane," he famously brought out his child bride Virginia and seated her on his lap. "What would you like from Santa this year?" he asked. And she replied, "The modern detective story." And so he invented it then and there, writing "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" using only a checkerboard, a bottle of brandy, and a map of Paris. At this point, the police chased Poe back to Baltimore.

You know all the famous myths about our nation's first president: that he wove his first wig himself from the hairs of the dog he killed so his family could eat. That he rid our nation of the plague of cherry trees. That beneath his gloves he had the giant, hairy paws of a bear. That he was our nation's first president. These are all charming tales.

But were you aware that George Washington. . .

. . .grew hemp?. . .distilled his own rye whiskey?. . .smoked 70 cigars a day?. . .had a rudimentary crystal meth lab in the basement of Mount Vernon?. . .kept a laudanum-soaked wad of cotton in his cheek at all times?. . .was turned on to hashish by Sally Fairfax, the wife of his best friend, whom he would love from afar for the rest of his life?. . .delivered his farewell address at Fraunces Tavern while high on Madeira and Red Bull?. . .ate 25 grains of French ecstasty daily "as a digestive"?. . .wrote A Book of Etiquette at the age of sixteen, including a final admonition to: "Labor to keep alive in your breast the little spark of celestial fire called 'cocaine?'". . .had false teeth that were not made out of wood but other human teeth?